From the winter of 1821, when I first read Bentham, and especially from the commencement of the Westminster Review, I had what might truly be called an object in life; to be a reformer of the world. My conception of my own happiness was entirely5 identified with this object. The personal sympathies I wished for were those of fellow labourers in this enterprise. I endeavoured to pick up as many flowers as I could by the way; but as a serious and permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon, my whole reliance was placed on this; and I was accustomed to felicitate myself on the certainty of a happy life which I enjoyed, through placing my happiness in something durable6 and distant, in which some progress might be always making, while it could never be exhausted7 by complete attainment8. This did very well for several years, during which the general improvement going on in the world and the idea of myself as engaged with others in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an interesting and animated9 existence. But the time came when I awakened11 from this as from a dream. It was in the autumn of 1826. I was in a dull state of nerves, such as everybody is occasionally liable to; unsusceptible to enjoyment13 or pleasurable excitement; one of those moods when what is pleasure at other times, becomes insipid14 or indifferent; the state, I should think, in which converts to Methodism usually are, when smitten15 by their first "conviction of sin." In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!" At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.
At first I hoped that the cloud would pass away of itself; but it did not. A night's sleep, the sovereign remedy for the smaller vexations of life, had no effect on it. I awoke to a renewed consciousness of the woful fact. I carried it with me into all companies, into all occupations. Hardly anything had power to cause me even a few minutes oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed to grow thicker and thicker. The lines in Coleridge's "Dejection" — I was not then acquainted with them — exactly describe my case:
"A grief without a pang17, void, dark and drear,
A drowsy18, stifled19, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet20 or relief
In word, or sigh, or tear."
In vain I sought relief from my favourite books; those memorials of past nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn21 strength and animation22. I read them now without feeling, or with the accustomed feeling minus all its charm; and I became persuaded, that my love of mankind, and of excellence23 for its own sake, had worn itself out. I sought no comfort by speaking to others of what I felt. If I had loved any one sufficiently24 to make confiding25 my griefs a necessity, I should not have been in the condition I was. I felt, too, that mine was not an interesting, or in any way respectable distress26. There was nothing in it to attract sympathy. Advice, if I had known where to seek it, would have been most precious. The words of Macbeth to the physician often occurred to my thoughts. But there was no one on whom I could build the faintest hope of such assistance. My father, to whom it would have been natural to me to have recourse in any practical difficulties, was the last person to whom, in such a case as this, I looked for help. Everything convinced me that he had no knowledge of any such mental state as I was suffering from, and that even if he could be made to understand it, he was not the physician who could heal it. My education, which was wholly his work, had been conducted without any regard to the possibility of its ending in this result; and I saw no use in giving him the pain of thinking that his plans had failed, when the failure was probably irremediable, and, at all events, beyond the power of his remedies. Of other friends, I had at that time none to whom I had any hope of making my condition intelligible28. It was however abundantly intelligible to myself; and the more I dwelt upon it, the more hopeless it appeared.
My course of study had led me to believe, that all mental and moral feelings and qualities, whether of a good or of a bad kind, were the results of association; that we love one thing, and hate another, take pleasure in one sort of action or contemplation, and pain in another sort, through the clinging of pleasurable or painful ideas to those things, from the effect of education or of experience. As a corollary from this, I had always heard it maintained by my father, and was myself convinced, that the object of education should be to form the strongest possible associations of the salutary class; associations of pleasure with all things beneficial to the great whole, and of pain with all things hurtful to it. This doctrine29 appeared inexpugnable; but it now seemed to me, on retrospect30, that my teachers had occupied themselves but superficially with the means of forming and keeping up these salutary associations. They seemed to have trusted altogether to the old familiar instruments, praise and blame, reward and punishment. Now, I did not doubt that by these means, begun early, and applied31 unremittingly, intense associations of pain and pleasure, especially of pain, might be created, and might produce desires and aversions capable of lasting32 undiminished to the end of life. But there must always be something artificial and casual in associations thus produced. The pains and pleasures thus forcibly associated with things, are not connected with them by any natural tie; and it is therefore, I thought, essential to the durability33 of these associations, that they should have become so intense and inveterate34 as to be practically indissoluble, before the habitual35 exercise of the power of analysis had commenced. For I now saw, or thought I saw, what I had always before received with incredulity — that the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has, when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing spirit remains36 without its natural complements37 and correctives. The very excellence of analysis (I argued) is that it tends to weaken and undermine whatever is the result of prejudice; that it enables us mentally to separate ideas which have only casually38 clung together: and no associations whatever could ultimately resist this dissolving force, were it not that we owe to analysis our clearest knowledge of the permanent sequences in nature; the real connexions between Things, not dependent on our will and feelings; natural laws, by virtue39 of which, in many cases, one thing is inseparable from another in fact; which laws, in proportion as they are clearly perceived and imaginatively realized, cause our ideas of things which are always joined together in Nature, to cohere40 more and more closely in our thoughts. Analytic41 habits may thus even strengthen the associations between causes and effects, means and ends, but tend altogether to weaken those which are, to speak familiarly, a mere42 matter of feeling. They are therefore (I thought) favourable43 to prudence44 and clearsightedness, but a perpetual worm at the root both of the passions and of the virtues45; and, above all, fearfully undermine all desires, and all pleasures, which are the effects of association, that is, according to the theory I held, all except the purely47 physical and organic; of the entire insufficiency of which to make life desirable, no one had a stronger conviction than I had. These were the laws of human nature, by which, as it seemed to me, I had been brought to my present state. All those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest sources of happiness. Of the truth of this I was convinced, but to know that a feeling would make me happy if I had it, did not give me the feeling. My education, I thought, had failed to create these feelings in sufficient strength to resist the dissolving influence of analysis, while the whole course of my intellectual cultivation48 had made precocious49 and premature50 analysis the inveterate habit of my mind. I was thus, as I said to myself, left stranded51 at the commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but no sail; without any real desire for the ends which I had been so carefully fitted out to work for: no delight in virtue, or the general good, but also just as little in anything else. The fountains of vanity and ambition seemed to have dried up within me, as completely as those of benevolence52. I had had (as I reflected) some gratification of vanity at too early an age: I had obtained some distinction, and felt myself of some importance, before the desire of distinction and of importance had grown into a passion: and little as it was which I had attained53, yet having been attained too early, like all pleasures enjoyed too soon, it had made me blasé and indifferent to the pursuit. Thus neither selfish nor unselfish pleasures were pleasures to me. And there seemed no power in nature sufficient to begin the formation of my character anew, and create in a mind now irretrievably analytic, fresh associations of pleasure with any of the objects of human desire.
These were the thoughts which mingled54 with the dry heavy dejection of the melancholy55 winter of 1826-7. During this time I was not incapable56 of my usual occupations. I went on with them mechanically, by the mere force of habit. I had been so drilled in a certain sort of mental exercise, that I could still carry it on when all the spirit had gone out of it. I even composed and spoke57 several speeches at the debating society, how, or with what degree of success, I know not. Of four years continual speaking at that society, this is the only year of which I remember next to nothing. Two lines of Coleridge, in whom alone of all writers I have found a true description of what I felt, were often in my thoughts, not at this time (for I had never read them), but in a later period of the same mental malady58:
"Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve59,
And hope without an object cannot live."
In all probability my case was by no means so peculiar60 as I fancied it, and I doubt not that many others have passed through a similar state; but the idiosyncrasies of my education had given to the general phenomenon a special character, which made it seem the natural effect of causes that it was hardly possible for time to remove. I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year. When, however, not more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a small ray of light broke in upon my gloom. I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel's "Mémoires," and came to the passage which relates his father's death, the distressed61 position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be everything to them-would supply the place of all that they had lost. A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. From this moment my been grew lighter62. The oppression of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone. I was no longer hopeless: I was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed, some of the material out of which all worth of character, and all capacity for happiness, are made. Relieved from my ever present sense of irremediable wretchedness, I gradually found that the ordinary incidents of life could again give me some pleasure; that I could again find enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for cheerfulness, in sunshine and sky, in books, in conversation, in public affairs; and that there was, once more, excitement, though of a moderate kind, in exerting myself for my opinions, and for the public good. Thus the cloud gradually drew off, and I again enjoyed life: and though I had several relapses, some of which lasted many months, I never again was as miserable63 as I had been.
The experiences of this period had two very marked effects on my opinions and character. In the first place, they led me to adopt a theory of life, very unlike that on which I had before acted, and having much in common with what at that time I certainly had never heard of, the anti-self-consciousness theory of Carlyle. I never, indeed, wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct, and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed64 on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments65 of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient66. They will not bear a scrutinizing67 examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny68, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale69 happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling70 on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling71 it in imagination, ot putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life. And I still hold to it as the best theory for all those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment, that is, for the great majority of mankind.
The other important change which my opinions at this time underwent, was that I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime necessities of human well-being72, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance to the ordering of outward circumstances, and the training of the human being for speculation73 and for action.
I had now learnt by experience that the passive susceptibilities needed to be cultivated as well as the active capacities, and required to be nourished and enriched as well as guided. I did not, for an instant, lose sight of, or undervalue, that part of the truth which I had seen before; I never turned recreant74 to intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the power and practice of analysis as an essential condition both of individual and of social improvement. But I thought that it had consequences which required to be corrected, by joining other kinds of cultivation with it. The maintenance of a due balance among the faculties75, now seemed to me of primary importance. The cultivation of the feelings became one of the cardinal76 points in my ethical77 and philosophical78 creed79. And my thoughts and inclinations80 turned in an increasing degree towards whatever seemed capable of being instrumental to that object.
I now began to find meaning in the things which I had read or heard about the importance of poetry and art as instruments of human culture. But it was some time longer before I began to know this by personal experience. The only one of the imaginative arts in which I had from childhood taken great pleasure, was music; the best effect of which (and in this it surpasses perhaps every other art) consists in exciting enthusiasm; in winding81 up to a high pitch those feelings of an elevated kind which are already in the character, but to which this excitement gives a glow and a fervour, which, though transitory at its utmost height, is precious for sustaining them at other times. This effect of music I had often experienced; but like all my pleasurable susceptibilities it was suspended duriNg the gloomy period. I had sought relief again and again from this quarter, but found none. After the tide had turned, and I was in process of recovery, I had been helped forward by music, but in a much less elevated manner. I at this time first became acquainted with Weber's Oberon, and the extreme pleasure which I drew from its delicious melodies did me good, by showing me a source of pleasure to which I was as susceptible12 as ever. The good, however, was much impaired82 by the thought, that the pleasure of music (as is quite true of such pleasure as this was, that of mere tune) fades with familiarity, and requires either to be revived by intermittence83, or fed by continual novelty. And it is very characteristic both of my then state, and of the general tone of my mind at this period of my life, that I was seriously tormented84 by the thought of the exhaustibility of musical combinations. The octave consists only of five tones and two semi-tones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways, of which but a small proportion are beautiful: most of these, it seemed to me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers, to strike out, as these had done, entirely new and surpassingly rich veins85 of musical beauty. This source of anxiety may, perhaps, be thought to resemble that of the philosophers of Laputa, who feared lest the sun should be burnt out. It was, however, connected with the best feature in my character, and the only good point to be found in my very unromantic and in no way honourable87 distress. For though my dejection, honestly looked at, could not be called other than egotistical, produced by the ruin, as I thought, of my fabric88 of happiness, yet the destiny of mankind in general was ever in my thoughts, and could not be separated from my own. I felt that the flaw in my life, must be a flaw in life itself; that the question was, whether, if the reformers of society and government could succeed in their objects, and every person in the community were free and in a state of physical comfort, the pleasures of life, being no longer kept up by struggle and privation, would cease to be pleasures. And I felt that unless I could see my way to some better hope than this for human happiness in general, my dejection must continue; but that if I could see such an outlet, I should then look on the world with pleasure; content as far as I was myself concerned, with any fair share of the general lot.
This state of my thoughts and feelings made the fact of my reading Wordsworth for the first time (in the autumn of 1828), an important event in my life. I took up the collection of his poems from curiosity, with no expectation of mental relief from it, though I had before resorted to poetry with that hope. In the worst period of my depression, I had read through the whole of Byron (then new to me), to try whether a poet, whose peculiar department was supposed to be that of the intenser feelings, could rouse any feeling in me. As might be expected, I got no good from this reading, but the reverse. The poet's state of mind was too like my own. His was the lament89 of a man who had worn out all pleasures, and who seemed to think that life, to all who possess the good things of it, must necessarily be the vapid90, uninteresting thing which I found it. His Harold and Manfred had the same burthen on them which I had; and I was not in a frame of mind to derive1 any comfort from the vehement91 sensual passion of his Giaours, or the sullenness92 of his Laras. But while Byron was exactly what did not suit my condition, Wordsworth was exactly what did. I had looked into the Excursion two or three years before, and found little in it; and I should probably have found as little, had I read it at this time. But the miscellaneous poems, in the two-volume edition of 1815 (to which little of value was added in the latter part of the author's life), proved to be the precise thing for my mental wants at that particular juncture93.
In the first place, these poems addressed themselves powerfully to one of the strongest of my pleasurable susceptibilities, the love of rural objects and natural scenery; to which I had been indebted not only for much of the pleasure of my life, but quite recently for relief from one of my longest relapses into depression. In this power of rural beauty over me, there was a foundation laid for taking pleasure in Wordsworth's, poetry. the more so, as his scenery lies mostly among mountains, which, owing to my early Pyrenean excursion, were my ideal of natural beauty. But Wordsworth would never have had any great effect on me, if he had merely placed before me beautiful pictures of natural scenery. Scott does this still better than Wordsworth, and a very second-rate landscape does it more effectually than any poet. What made Wordsworth's poems a medicine for my state of mind, was that they expressed, not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought coloured by feeling, under the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the very culture of the feelings, which I was in quest of. In them I seemed to draw from a Source of inward joy, of sympathetic and imaginative pleasure, which could be shared in by all human beings; which had no connexion with struggle ot imperfection, but would be made richer by every improvement in the physical or social condition of mankind. From them I seemed to learn what would be the perennial94 sources of happiness, when all the greater evils of life shall have been removed. And I felt myself at once better and happier as I came under their influence. There have certainly been, even in our own age, greater poets than Wordsworth; but poetry of deeper and loftier feeling could not have done for me at that time what his did. I needed to be made to feel that there was real, permanent happiness in tranquil95 contemplation. Wordsworth taught me this, not only without turning away from, but with a greatly increased interest in the common feelings and common destiny of human beings. And the delight which these poems gave me, proved that with culture of this sort, there was nothing to dread96 from the most confirmed habit of analysis. At the conclusion of the Poems came the famous Ode, falsely called Platonic97, "Intimations of Immortality98:" in which, along with more than his usual sweetness of melody and rhythm, and along with the two passages of grand imagery but bad philosophy so often quoted, I found that he too had had similar experience to mine; that he also had felt that the first freshness of youthful enjoyment of life was not lasting; but that he had sought for compensation, and found it, in the way in which he was now teaching me to find it. The result was that I gradually, but completely, emerged from my habitual depression, and was never again subject to it. I long continued to value Wordsworth less according to his intrinsic merits, than by the measure of what he had done for me. Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed101 of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely102 those which require poetic100 cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he.
It so fell out that the merits of Wordsworth were the occasion of my first public declaration of my new way of thinking, and separation from those of my habitual companions who had not undergone a similar change. The person with whom at that time I was most in the habit of comparing notes on such subjects was Roebuck, and I induced him to read Wordsworth, in whom he also at first seemed to find much to admire: but I, like most Wordsworthians, threw myself into strong antagonism103 to Byron, both as a poet and as to his influence on the character. Roebuck, all whose instincts were those of action and struggle, had, on the contrary, a strong relish104 and great admiration105 of Byron, whose writings he regarded as the poetry of human life, while Wordsworth's, according to him, was that of flowers and butterflies. We agreed to have the fight out at our Debating Society, where we accordingly discussed for two evenings the comparative merits of Byron and Wordsworth, propounding106 and illustrating107 by long recitations our respective theories of poetry: Sterling108 also, in a brilliant speech, putting forward his particular theory. This was the first debate on any weighty subject in which Roebuck and I had been on opposite sides. The schism109 between us widened from this time more and more, though we continued for some years longer to be companions. In the beginning, our chief divergence110 related to the cultivation of the feelings. Roebuck was in many respects very different from the vulgar notion of a Benthamite or Utilitarian111. He was a lover of poetry and of most of the fine arts. He took great pleasure in music, in dramatic performances, especially in painting, and himself drew and designed landscapes with great facility and beauty. But he never could be made to see that these things have any value as aids in the formation of character. Personally, instead of being, as Benthamites are supposed to be, void of feeling, he had very quick and strong sensibilities. But, like most Englishmen who have feelings, he found his feelings stand very much in his way. He was much more susceptible to the painful sympathies than to the pleasurable, and looking for his happiness elsewhere, he wished that his feelings should be deadened rather than quickened. And, in truth, the English character, and English social circumstances, make it so seldom possible to derive happiness from the exercise of the sympathies, that it is not wonderful if they count for little in an Englishman's scheme of life. In most other countries the paramount112 importance of the sympathies as a constituent113 of individual happiness is an axiom, taken for granted rather than needing any formal statement; but most English thinkers almost seem to regard them as necessary evils, required for keeping men's actions benevolent114 and compassionate115. Roebuck was, or appeared to be, this kind of Englishman. He saw little good in any cultivation of the feelings, and none at all in cultivating them through the imagination, which he thought was only cultivating illusions. It was in vain I urged on him that the imaginative emotion which an idea, when vividly117 conceived, excites in us, is not an illusion but a fact, as real as any of the other qualities of objects; and far from implying anything erroneous and delusive118 in our mental apprehension119 of the object, is quite consistent with the most accurate knowledge and most perfect practical recognition of all its physical and intellectual laws and relations. The intensest feeling of the beauty of a cloud lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance120 to my knowing that the cloud is vapour of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a state of suspension; and I am just as likely to allow for, and act on, these physical laws whenever there is occasion to do so, as if I had been incapable of perceiving any distinction between beauty and ugliness.
While my intimacy121 with Roebuck diminished, I fell more and more into friendly intercourse122 with our Coleridgian adversaries123 in the Society, Frederick Maurice and John Sterling, both subsequently so well known, the former by his writings, the latter through the biographies by Hare and Carlyle. Of these two friends, Maurice was the thinker, Sterling the orator124, and impassioned expositor of thoughts which, at this period, were almost entirely formed for him by Maurice. With Maurice I had for some time been acquainted through Eyton Tooke, who had known him at Cambridge, and though my discussions with him were almost always disputes, I had carried away from them much that helped to build up my new fabric of thought, in the same way as I was deriving125 much from Coleridge, and from the writings of Goethe and other German authors which I read during those years. I have so deep a respect for Maurice's character and purposes, as well as for his great mental gifts, that it is with some unwillingness126 I say anything which may seem to place him on a less high eminence127 than I would gladly be able to accord to him. But I have always thought that there was more intellectual power wasted in Maurice than in any other of my contemporaries. Few of them certainly have had so much to waste. Great powers of generalization128, rare ingenuity129 and subtlety130, and a wide perception of important and unobvious truths, served him not for putting something better into the place of the worthless heap of received opinions on the great subjects of thought, but for proving to his own mind that the Church of England had known everything from the first, and that all the truths on the ground of which the Church and orthodoxy have been attacked (many of which he saw as clearly as any one) are not only consistent with the Thirty-nine articles, but are better understood and expressed in those articles than by any one who rejects them. I have never been able to find any other explanation of this, than by attributing it to that timidity of conscience, combined with original sensitiveness of temperament131, which has so often driven highly gifted men into Romanism from the need of a firmer support than they can find in the independent conclusions of their own judgment132. Any more vulgar kind of timidity no one who knew Maurice would ever think of imputing133 to him, even if he had not given public proof of his freedom from it, by his ultimate collision with some of the opinions commonly regarded as orthodox, and by his noble origination of the Christian134 Socialist135 movement. The nearest parallel to him, in a moral point of view, is Coleridge, to whom, in merely intellectual power, apart from poetical99 genius, I think him decidedly superior. At this time, however, he might be described as a disciple137 of Coleridge, and Sterling as a disciple of Coleridge and of him. The modifications138 which were taking place in my old opinions gave me some points of contact with them; and both Maurice and Sterling were of considerable use to my development. With Sterling I soon became very intimate, and was more attached to him than I have ever been to any other man. He was indeed one of the most lovable of men. His frank, cordial, affectionate, and expansive character; a love of truth alike conspicuous139 in the highest things and the humblest; a generous and ardent140 nature which threw itself with impetuosity into the opinions it adopted, but was as eager to do justice to the doctrines141 and the men it was opposed to, as to make war on what it thought their errors; and an equal devotion to the two cardinal points of Liberty and Duty, formed a combination of qualities as attractive to me, as to all others who knew him as well as I did. With his open mind and heart, he found no difficulty in joining hands with me across the gulf142 which as yet divided our opinions. He told me how he and others had looked upon me (from hearsay143 information), as a "made" or manufactured man, having had a certain impress of opinion stamped on me which I could only reproduce; and what a change took place in his feelings when he found, in the discussion on Wordsworth and Byron, that Wordsworth, and all which that names implies, "belonged" to me as much as to him and his friends. The failure of his health soon scattered144 all his plans of life, and compelled him to live at a distance from London, so that after the first year or two of our acquaintance, we only saw each other at distant intervals145. But (as he said himself in one of his letters to Carlyle) when we did meet it was like brothers. Though he was never, in the full sense of the word, a profound thinker, his openness of mind, and the moral courage in which he greatly surpassed Maurice, made him outgrow147 the dominion148 which Maurice and Coleridge had once exercised over his intellect; though he retained to the last a great but discriminating149 admiration of both, and towards Maurice a warm affection. Except in that short and transitory phasis of his life, during which he made the mistake of becoming a clergyman, his mind was ever progressive: and the advance he always seemed to have made when I saw him after an interval146, made me apply to him what Goethe said of Schiller, "Er hatte eine fürchterliche Fortschreitung." He and I started from intellectual points almost as wide apart as the poles, but the distance between us was always diminishing: if I made steps towards some of his opinions, he, during his short life, was constantly approximating more and more to several of mine: and if he had lived, and had health and vigour150 to prosecute151 his ever assiduous self-culture, there is no knowing how much further this spontaneous assimilation might have proceeded.
After 1829 I withdrew from attendance on the debating Society. I had had enough of speech-making, and was glad to carry on my private studies and meditations152 without any immediate call for outward assertion of their results. I found the fabric of my old and taught opinions giving way in many fresh places, and I never allowed it to fall to pieces, but was incessantly154 occupied in weaving it anew. I never, in the course of my transition, was content to remain, for ever so short a time, confused and unsettled. When I had taken in any new idea, I could not rest till I had adjusted its relation to my old opinions, and ascertained155 exactly how far its effect ought to extend in modifying or superseding156 them.
The conflicts which I had so often had to sustain in defending the theory of government laid down in Bentham's and my father's writings, and the acquaintance I had obtained with other schools of political thinking, made me aware of many things which that doctrine, professing157 to be a theory of government in general, ought to have made room for, and did not. But these things, as yet, remained with me rather as corrections to be made in applying the theory to practice, than as defects in the theory. I felt that politics could not be a science of specific experience; and that the accusations158 against the Benthamic theory of being a theory, of proceeding159 à priori by way of general reasoning, instead of Baconian experiment, showed complete ignorance of Bacon's principles, and of the necessary conditions of experimental investigation160. At this juncture appeared in the Edinburgh Review, Macaulay's famous attack on my father's Essay on Government. This gave me much to think about. I saw that Macaulay's conception of the logic161 of politics was erroneous; that he stood up for the empirical mode of treating political phenomena162, against the philosophical; that even in physical science his notion of philosophizing might have recognized Kepler, but would have excluded Newton and Laplace. But I could not help feeling, that though the tone was unbecoming (an error for which the writer, at a later period, made the most ample and honourable amends), there was truth in several of his strictures on my father's treatment of the subject; that my father's premises163 were really too narrow, and included but a small number of the general truths, on which, in politics, the important consequences depend. Identity of interest between the governing body and the community at large, is not, in any practical sense which can be attached to it, the only thing on which good government depends; neither can this identity of interest be secured by the mere conditions of election. I was not at all satisfied with the mode in which my father met the criticisms of Macaulay. He did not, as I thought he ought to have done, justify164 himself by saying, "I was not writing a scientific treatise165 on politics, I was writing an argument for parliamentary reform." He treated Macaulay's argument as simply irrational166; an attack upon the reasoning faculty167; an example of the saying of Hobbes, that when reason is against a man, a man will be against reason. This made me think that there was really something more fundamentally erroneous in my father's conception of philosophical method, as applicable to politics, than I had hitherto supposed there was. But I did not at first see clearly what the error might be. At last it flashed upon me all at once in the course of other studies. In the early part of 1830 I had begun to put on paper the ideas on Logic (chiefly on the distinctions among Terms, and the import of Propositions) which had been suggested and in part worked out in the morning conversations already spoken of. Having secured these thoughts from being lost, I pushed on into the other parts of the subject, to try whether I could do anything further towards clearing up the theory of Logic generally. I grappled at once with the problem of Induction168, postponing169 that of Reasoning, on the ground that it is necessary to obtain premises before we can reason from them. Now, Induction is mainly a process for finding the causes of effects: and in attempting to fathom170 the mode of tracing causes and effects in physical science, I soon saw that in the more perfect of the sciences, we ascend171, by generalization from particulars, to the tendencies of causes considered singly, and then reason downward from those separate tendencies, to the effect of the same causes when combined. I then asked myself, what is the ultimate analysis of this deductive process; the common theory of the syllogism172 evidently throwing no light upon it. My practice (learnt from Hobbes and my father) being to study abstract principles by means of the best concrete instances I could find, the Composition of Forces, in dynamics173, occurred to me as the most complete example of the logical process I was investigating. On examining, accordingly, what the mind does when it applies the principle of the Composition of Forces, I found that it performs a simple act of addition. It adds the separate effect of the one force to the separate effect of the other, and puts down the sum of these separate effects as the joint174 effect. But is this a legitimate175 process? In dynamics, and in all the mathematical branches of physics, it is; but in some other cases, as in chemistry, it is not; and I then recollected176 that something not unlike this was pointed177 out as one of the distinctions between chemical and mechanical phenomena, in the introduction to that favorite of my boyhood, Thomson's System of Chemistry. This distinction at once made my mind clear as to what was perplexing me in respect to the philosophy of politics. I now saw, that a science is either deductive or experimental, according as, in the province it deals with, the effects of causes when conjoined, are or are not the sums of the effects which the same causes produce when separate. It followed that politics must be a deductive science. It thus appeared, that both Macaulay and my father were wrong; the one in assimilating the method of philosophising in politics to the purely experimental method of chemistry; while the other, though right in adopting a deductive method, had made a wrong selection of one, having taken as the type of deduction178, not the appropriate process, that of the deductive branches of natural philosophy, but the inappropriate one of pure geometry, which, not being a science of causation at all, does not require or admit of any summing-up of effects. A foundation was thus laid in my thoughts for the principal chapters of what I afterwards published on the Logic of the Moral Sciences; and my new position in respect to my old political creed, now became perfectly179 definite.
If I am asked, what system of political philosophy I substituted for that which, as a philosophy, I had abandoned, I answer, no system: only a conviction that the true system was something much more complex and many-sided than I had previously180 had any idea of, and that its office was to supply, not a set of model institutions, but principles from which the institutions suitable to any given circumstances might be deduced. The influences of European, that is to say Continental181, thought, and especially those of the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, were now streaming in upon me. They came from various quarters: from the writings of Coleridge, which I had begun to read with interest even before the change in my opinions; from the Coleridgians with whom I was in personal intercourse; from what I had read of Goethe; from Carlyle's early articles in the Edinburgh and Foreign Reviews, though for a long time I saw nothing in these (as my father saw nothing in them to the last) but insane rhapsody. From these sources, and from the acquaintance I kept up with the French literature of the time, I derived, among other ideas which the general turning upside down of the opinions of European thinkers had brought uppermost, these in particular. That the human mind has a certain order of possible progress, in which some things must precede others, an order which governments and public instructors182 can modify to some, but not to an unlimited183 extent: That all questions of political institutions are relative, not absolute, and that different stages of human progress not only will have, but ought to have, different institutions: That government is always either in the hands, or passing into the hands, of whatever is the strongest power in society, and that what this power is, does not depend on institutions, but institutions on it: That any general theory or philosophy of politics supposes a previous theory of human progress, and that this is the same thing with a philosophy of history. These opinions, true in the main, were held in an exaggerated and violent manner by the thinkers with whom I was now most accustomed to compare notes, and who, as usual with a reaction, ignored that half of the truth which the thinkers of the eighteenth century saw. But though, at one period of my progress, I for some time under-valued that great century, I never joined in the reaction against it, but kept as firm hold of one side of the truth as I took of the other. The fight between the nineteenth century and the eighteenth always reminded me of the battle about the shield, one side of which was white and the other black. I marvelled184 at the blind rage with which the combatants rushed against one another. I applied to them, and to Coleridge himself, many of Coleridge's sayings about half truths; and Goethe's device, "many-sidedness," was one which I would most willingly, at this period, have taken for mine.
The writers by whom, more than by any others, a new mode of political thinking was brought home to me, were those of the St. Simonian school in France. In 1829 and 1830 I became acquainted with some of their writings. They were then only in the earlier stages of their speculations185. They had not yet dressed out their philosophy as a religion, nor had they organized their scheme of Socialism. They were just beginning to question the principle of hereditary186 property. I was by no means prepared to go with them even this length; but I was greatly struck with the connected view which they for the first time presented to me, of the natural order of human progress; and especially with their division of all history into organic periods and critical periods. During the organic periods (they said) mankind accept with firm conviction some positive creed, claiming jurisdiction187 over all their actions, and containing more or less of truth and adaptation to the needs of humanity. Under its influence they make all the progress compatible with the creed, and finally outgrow it; when a period follows of criticism and negation188, in which mankind lose their old convictions without acquiring any new ones, of a general or authoritative189 character, except the conviction that the old are false. The period of Greek and Roman polytheism, so long as really believed in by instructed Greeks and Romans, was an organic period, succeeded by the critical or sceptical period of the Greek philosophers. Another organic period came in with Christianity. The corresponding critical period began with the Reformation, has lasted ever since, still lasts, and cannot altogether cease until a new organic period has been inaugurated by the triumph of a yet more advanced creed. These ideas, I knew, were not peculiar to the St. Simonians; on the contrary, they were the general property of Europe, or at least of Germany and France, but they had never, to my knowledge, been so completely systematized as by these writers, nor the distinguishing characteristics of a critical period so powerfully set forth190; for I was not then acquainted with Fichte's Lectures on "the Characteristics of the Present Age." In Carlyle, indeed, I found bitter denunciations of an "age of unbelief," and of the present as such, which I, like most people at that time, supposed to be passionate116 protests in favour of the old modes of belief. But all that was true in these denunciations, I thought that I found more calmly and philosophically191 stated by the St. Simonians. Among their publications, too, there was one which seemed to me far superior to the rest; in which the general idea was matured into something much more definite and instructive. This was an early work of Auguste Comte, who then called himself, and even announced himself in the title-page as, a pupil of Saint-Simon. In this tract27 M. Comte first put forth the doctrine, which he afterwards so copiously192 illustrated193, of the natural succession of three stages in every department of human knowledge: first, the theological, next the metaphysical, and lastly, the positive stage; and contended, that social science must be subject to the same law; that the feudal194 and Catholic system was the concluding phasis of the theological state of the social science, Protestantism the commencement, and the doctrines of the French Revolution the consummation of the metaphysical; and that its positive state was yet to come. This doctrine harmonized well with my existing notions, to which it seemed to give a scientific shape. I already regarded the methods of physical science as the proper models for political. But the chief benefit which I derived at this time from the trains of thought suggested by the St. Simonians and by Comte, was, that I obtained a clear conception than ever before of the peculiarities195 of an era of transition in opinion, and ceased to mistake the moral and intellectual characteristics of such an era, for the normal attributes of humanity. I looked forward, through the present age of loud disputes but generally weak convictions, to a future which shall unite the best qualities of the critical with the best qualities of the organic periods; unchecked liberty of thought, unbounded freedom of individual action in all modes not hurtful to others; but also, convictions as to what is right and wrong, useful and pernicious, deeply engraven on the feelings by early education and general unanimity196 of sentiment, and so firmly grounded in reason and in the true exigencies197 of life, that they shall not, like all former and present creeds198, religious, ethical, and political, require to be periodically thrown off and replaced by others.
M. Comte soon left the St. Simonians, and I lost sight of him and his writings for a number of years. But the St. Simonians I continued to cultivate. I was kept au courant of their progress by one of their most enthusiastic disciples199, M. Gustave d'Eichthal, who about that time passed a considerable interval in England. I was introduced to their chiefs, Bazard and Enfantin, in 1830; and as long as their public teachings and proselytism continued, I read nearly everything they wrote. Their criticisms on the common doctrines of Liberalism seemed to me full of important truth; and it was partly by their writings that my eyes were opened to the very limited and temporary value of the old political economy, which assumes private property and inheritance as indefeasible facts, and freedom of production and exchange as the dernier mot of social improvement. The scheme gradually unfolded by the St. Simonians, under which the labour and capital of society would be managed for the general account of the community every individual being required to take a share of labour either as thinker, teacher, artist, or producer, all being classed according to their capacity, and remunerated according to their works, appeared to me a far superior description of Socialism to Owen's. Their aim seemed to me desirable and rational, however their means might be inefficacious; and though I neither believed in the practicability nor in the beneficial operation of their social machinery200, I felt that the proclamation of such an ideal of human society could not but tend to give a beneficial direction to the efforts of others to bring society as at present constituted, nearer to some ideal standard. I 'honoured them most of all for what they have been most cried down for — the boldness and freedom from prejudice with which they treated the subject of family the most important of any, and needing more fundamental alterations201 than remain to be made in any other great social institution, but on which scarcely any reformer has the courage to touch. In proclaiming the perfect equality of men and women, and an entirely new order of things in regard to their relations with one another, the St. Simonians, in common with Owen and Fourier, have entitled themselves to the grateful remembrance of future generations.
In giving an account of this period of my life, I have only specified202 such of my new impressions as appeared to me, both at the time and since, to be a kind of turning points, marking a definite progress in my mode of thought. But these few selected points give a very insufficient idea of the quantity of thinking which I carried on respecting a host of subjects during these years of transition. Much of this, it is true, consisted in rediscovering things known to all the world, which I had previously disbelieved, or disregarded. But the rediscovery was to me a discovery, giving me plenary possession of the truths, not as traditional platitudes203, but fresh from their source; and it seldom failed to place them in some new light, by which they were reconciled with, and seemed to confirm while they modified, the truths less generally known which lay in my early opinions, and in no essential part of which I at any time wavered. All my new thinking only laid the foundation of these more deeply and strongly while it often removed misapprehension and confusion of ideas which had perverted204 their effect. For example, during the later returns of my dejection, the doctrine of what is called Philosophical Necessity weighed on my existence like an incubus205. I felt as if I was scientifically proved to be the helpless slave of antecedent circumstances; as if my character and that of all others had been formed for us by agencies beyond our control, and was wholly out of our own power. I often said to myself, what a relief it would be if I could disbelieve the doctrine of the formation of character by circumstances; and remembering the wish of Fox respecting the doctrine of resistance to governments, that it might never be forgotten by kings, nor remembered by subjects, I said that it would be a blessing206 if the doctrine of necessity could be believed by all quoad the characters of others, and disbelieved in regard to their own. I pondered painfully on the subject, till gradually I saw light through it. I perceived, that the word Necessity, as a name for the doctrine of Cause and Effect applied to human action, carried with it a misleading association; and that this association was the operative force in the depressing and paralysing influence which I had experienced: I saw that though our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances; and that what is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of free-will, is the conviction that we have real power over the formation of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify our future habits or capabilities207 of willing. All this was entirely consistent with the doctrine of circumstances, or rather, was that doctrine itself, properly understood. From that time I drew in my own mind, a clear distinction between the doctrine of circumstances, and Fatalism; discarding altogether the misleading word Necessity. The theory, which I now for the first time rightly apprehended208, ceased altogether to be discouraging, and besides the relief to my spirits, I no longer suffered under the burthen, so heavy to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions, of thinking one doctrine true, and the contrary doctrine morally beneficial. The train of thought which had extricated209 me from this dilemma210, seemed to me, in after years, fitted to render a similar service to others; and it now forms the chapter on Liberty and Necessity in the concluding Book of my "System of Logic."
Again, in politics, though I no longer accepted the doctrine of the Essay on Government as a scientific theory; though I ceased to consider representative democracy as an absolute principle, and regarded it as a question of time, place, and circumstance; though I now looked upon the choice of political institutions as a moral and educational question more than one of material interests, thinking that it ought to be decided136 mainly by the consideration, what great improvement in life and culture stands next in order for the people concerned, as the condition of their further progress, and what institutions are most likely to promote that; nevertheless, this change in the premises of my political philosophy did not alter my practical political creed as to the requirements of my own time and country. I was as much as ever a radical211 and democrat212 for Europe, and especially for England. I thought the predominance of the aristocratic classes, the noble and the rich, in the English Constitution, an evil worth any struggle to get rid of; not on account of taxes, or any such comparatively small inconvenience, but as the great demoralizing agency in the country. Demoralizing, first, because it made the conduct of the government an example of gross public immorality213, through the predominance of private over public interests in the State, and the abuse of the powers of legislation for the advantage of classes. Secondly214, and in a still greater degree, because the respect of the multitude always attaching itself principally to that which, in the existing state of society, is the chief passport to power; and under English institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, being the almost exclusive source of political importance; riches, and the signs of riches, were almost the only things really respected, and the life of the people was mainly devoted215 to the pursuit of them. I thought, that while the higher and richer classes held the power of government, the instruction and improvement of the mass of the people were contrary to the self-interest of those classes, because tending to render the people more powerful for throwing off the yoke216: but if the democracy obtained a large, and perhaps the principal, share in the governing power, it would become the interest of the opulent classes to promote their education, in order to ward16 off really mischievous217 errors, and especially those which would lead to unjust violations218 of property. On these grounds I was not only as ardent as ever for democratic institutions, but earnestly hoped that Owenite, St. Simonian, and all other anti-property doctrines might spread widely among the poorer classes; not that I thought those doctrines true, or desired that they should be acted on, but in order that the higher classes might be made to see that they had more to fear from the poor when uneducated, than when educated.
In this frame of mind the French Revolution of July found me. It aroused my utmost enthusiasm, and gave me, as it were, a new existence. I went at once to Paris, was introduced to Lafayette, and laid the groundwork of the intercourse I afterwards kept up with several of the active chiefs of the extreme popular party. After my return I entered warmly, as a writer, into the political discussions of the time; which soon became still more exciting, by the coming in of Lord Grey's ministry219, and the proposing of the Reform Bill. For the next few years I wrote copiously in newspapers. It was about this time that Fonblanque, who had for some time written the political articles in the Examiner, became the proprietor220 and editor of the paper. It is not forgotten with what verve and talent, as well as fine wit, he carried it on, during the whole period of Lord Grey's ministry, and what importance it assumed as the principal representative, in the newspaper press, of radical opinions. The distinguishing character of the paper was given to it entirely by his own articles, which formed at least three-fourths of all the original writing contained in it: but of the remaining fourth I contributed during those years a much larger share than any one else. I wrote nearly all the articles on French subjects, including a weekly summary of French politics, often extending to considerable length; together with many leading articles on general politics, commercial and financial legislation, and any miscellaneous subjects in which I felt interested, and which were suitable to the paper, including occasional reviews of books. Mere newspaper articles on the occurrences or questions of the moment, gave no opportunity for the development of any general mode of thought; but I attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to embody221 in a series of articles, headed "The Spirit of the Age," some of my new opinions, and especially to point out in the character of the present age, the anomalies and evils characteristic of the transition from a system of opinions which had worn out, to another only in process of being formed. These articles were, I fancy, lumbering222 in style, and not lively or striking enough to be at any time, acceptable to newspaper readers; but had they been far more attractive, still, at that particular moment, when great political changes were impending223, and engrossing224 all minds, these discussions were ill-timed, and missed fire altogether. The only effect which I know to have been produced by them, was that Carlyle, then living in a secluded225 part of Scotland, read them in his solitude226, and saying to himself (as he afterwards told me) "here is a new Mystic," inquired on coming to London that autumn respecting their authorship; an inquiry227 which was the immediate cause of our becoming personally acquainted.
I have already mentioned Carlyle's earlier writings as one of the channels through which I received the influences which enlarged my early narrow creed; but I do not think that those writings, by themselves, would ever have had any effect on my opinions. What truths they contained, though of the very kind which I was already receiving from other quarters, were presented in a form and vesture less suited than any other to give them access to a mind trained as mine had been. They seemed a haze228 of poetry and German metaphysics, in which almost the only clear thing was a strong animosity to most of the opinions which were the basis of my mode of thought; religious scepticism, utilitarianism, the doctrine of circumstances, and the attaching any importance to democracy, logic, or political economy. Instead of my having been taught anything, in the first instance, by Carlyle, it was only in proportion as I came to see the same truths through media more suited to my mental constitution, that I recognized them in his writings. Then, indeed, the wonderful power with which he put them forth made a deep impression upon me, and I was during a long period one of his most fervent229 admirers; but the good his writings did me, was not as philosophy to instruct, but as poetry to animate10. Even at the time when out acquaintance commenced, I was not sufficiently advanced in my new modes of thought, to appreciate him fully46; a proof of which is, that on his showing me the manuscript of Sartor Resartus, his best and greatest work, which he had just then finished, I made little of it; though when it came out about two years afterwards in Fraser's Magazine I read it with enthusiastic admiration and the keenest delight. I did not seek and cultivate Carlyle less on account of the fundamental differences in our philosophy. He soon found out that I was not "another mystic," and when for the sake of my own integrity I wrote to him a distinct profession of all those of my opinions which I knew he most disliked, he replied that the chief difference between us was that I "was as yet consciously nothing of a mystic." I do not know at what period he gave up the expectation that I was destined230 to become one; but though both his and my opinions underwent in subsequent years considerable changes, we never approached much nearer to each other's modes of thought than we were in the first years of our acquaintance. I did not, however, deem myself a competent judge of Carlyle. I felt that he was a poet, and that I was not; that he was a man of intuition, which I was not; and that as such, he not only saw many things long before me, which I could only when they were pointed out to me, hobble after and prove, but that it was highly probable he could see many things which were not visible to me even after they were pointed out. I knew that I could not see round him, and could never be certain that I saw over him; and I never presumed to judge him with any definiteness, until he was interpreted to me by one greatly the superior of us both — who was more a poet than he, and more a thinker than I— whose own mind and nature included his, and infinitely231 more.
Among the persons of intellect whom I had known of old, the one with whom I had now most points of agreement was the elder Austin. I have mentioned that he always set himself in opposition232 to our early sectarianism; and latterly he had, like myself, come under new influences. Having been appointed Professor of Jurisprudence in the London University (now University College), he had lived for some time at Bonn to study for his Lectures; and the influences of German literature and of the German character and state of society had made a very perceptible change in his views of life. His personal disposition233 was much softened234 ; he w as less militant235 and polemic236; his tastes had begun to turn themselves towards the poetic and contemplative. He attached much less importance than formerly237 to outward changes; unless accompanied by a better cultivation of the inward nature. He had a strong distaste for the general meanness of English life, the absence of enlarged thoughts and unselfish desires, the low objects on which the faculties of all classes of the English are intent. Even the kind of public interests which Englishmen care for, he held in very little esteem238. He thought that there was more practical good government, and (which is true enough) infinitely more care for the education and mental improvement of all ranks of the people, under the Prussian monarchy239, than under the English representative government: and he held, with the French Economistes, that the real security for good government is "un peuple éclairé," which is not always the fruit of popular institutions, and which if it could be had without them, would do their work better than they. Though he approved of the Reform Bill, he predicted, what in fact occurred, that it would not produce the great immediate improvements in government, which many expected from it. The men, he said, who could do these great things, did not exist in the country. There were many points of sympathy between him and me, both in the new opinions he had adopted and in the old ones which he retained. Like me, he never ceased to be an utilitarian, and with all his love of the Germans, and enjoyment of their literature, never became in the smallest degree reconciled to the innate-principle metaphysics. He cultivated more and more a kind of German religion, a religion of poetry and feeling with little, if anything, of positive dogma; while, in politics (and here it was that I most differed with him) he acquired an indifference240, bordering on contempt, for the progress of popular institutions: though he rejoiced in that of Socialism, as the most effectual means of compelling the powerful classes to educate the people, and to impress on them the only real means of permanently241 improving their material condition, a limitation of their numbers. Neither was he, at this time, fundamentally opposed to Socialism in itself as an ultimate result of improvement. He professed242 great disrespect for what he called "the universal principles of human nature of the political economists," and insisted on the evidence which history and daily experience afford of the "extraordinary pliability243 of human nature" (a phrase which I have somewhere borrowed from him), nor did he think it possible to set any positive bounds to the moral capabilities which might unfold themselves in mankind, under an enlightened direction of social and educational influences. Whether he retained all these opinions to the end of life I know not. Certainly the modes of thinking of his later years, and especially of his last publication, were much more Tory in their general character than those which he held at this time.
My father's tone of thought and feeling, I now felt myself at a great distance from: greater, indeed, than a full and calm explanation and reconsideration on both sides, might have shown to exist in reality. But my father was not one with whom calm and full explanations on fundamental points of doctrine could be expected, at least with one whom he might consider as, in some sort, a deserter from his standard. Fortunately we were almost always in strong agreement on the political questions of the day which engrossed244 a large part of his interest and of his conversation. On those matters of opinion on which we differed, we talked little. He knew that the habit of thinking for myself, which his mode of education had fostered, sometimes led me to opinions different from his, and he perceived from time to time that I did not always tell him how different. I expected no good, but only pain to both of us, from discussing our differences: and I never expressed them but when he gave utterance245 to some opinion of feeling repugnant to mine, in a manner which would have made it disingenuousness246 on my part to remain silent.
It remains to speak of what I wrote during these years, which, independently of my contributions to newspapers, was considerable. In 1830 and 1831 I wrote the five Essays since published under the title of "Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy," almost as they now stand, except that in 1833 I partially247 rewrote the fifth Essay. They were written with no immediate purpose of publication; and when, some years later, I offered them to a publisher, he declined them. They were only printed in 1844, after the success of the "System of Logic." I also resumed my speculations on this last subject, and puzzled myself, like others before me, with the great paradox248 of the discovery of new truths by general reasoning. As to the fact, there could be no doubt. As little could it be doubted, that all reasoning is resolvable into syllogisms, and that in every syllogism the conclusion is actually contained and implied in the premises. How, being so contained and implied, it could be new truth, and how the theorems of geometry, so different in appearance from the definitions and axioms, could be all contained in these, was a difficulty which no one, I thought, had sufficiently felt, and which, at all events, no one had succeeded in clearing up. The explanations offered by Whately and others, though they might give a temporary satisfaction, always, in my mind, left a mist still hanging over the subject. At last, when reading a second or third time the chapters on Reasoning in the second volume of Dugald Stewart, interrogating249 myself on every point, and following out, as far as I knew how, every topic of thought which the book suggested, I came upon an idea of his respecting the use of axioms in ratiocination250, which I did not remember to have before noticed, but which now, in meditating251 on it, seemed to me not only true of axioms, but of all general propositions whatever, and to be the key of the whole perplexity. From this germ grew the theory of the Syllogism propounded252 in the Second Book of the Logic; which I immediately fixed by writing it out. And now, with greatly increased hope of being able to produce a work on Logic, of some originality253 and value, I proceeded to write the First Book, from the rough and imperfect draft I had already made. What I now wrote became the basis of that part of the subsequent Treatise; except that it did not contain the Theory of Kinds, which was a later addition, suggested by otherwise inextricable difficulties which met me in my first attempt to work out the subject of some of the concluding chapters of the Third Book. At the point which I had now reached I made a halt, which lasted five years. I had come to the end of my tether; I could make nothing satisfactory of Induction, at this time. I continued to read any book which seemed to promise light on the subject, and appropriated, as well as I could, the results; but for a long time I found nothing which seemed to open to me any very important vein86 of meditation153.
In 1832 I wrote several papers for the first series of Tait's Magazine, and one for a quarterly periodical called the Jurist, which had been founded, and for a short time carried on, by a set of friends, all lawyers and law reformers, with several of whom I was acquainted. The paper in question is the one on the rights and duties of the State respecting Corporation and Church Property, now standing254 first among the collected "Dissertations255 and Discussions;" where one of my articles in Tait, "The Currency Juggle," also appears. In the whole mass of what I wrote previous to these, there is nothing of sufficient permanent value to justify reprinting. The paper in the Jurist, which I still think a very complete discussion of the rights of the State over Foundations, showed both sides of my opinions, asserting as firmly as I should have done at any time, the doctrine that all endowments are national property, which the government may and ought to control; but not, as I should once have done, condemning256 endowments in themselves, and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the national debt. On the contrary, I urged strenuously257 the importance of having a provision for education, not dependent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on the knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calculated to establish and keep up a higher standard of instruction than is likely to be spontaneously demanded by the buyers of the article. All these opinions have been confirmed and strengthened by the whole course of my subsequent reflections.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
derive
|
|
| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
derived
|
|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
transformation
|
|
| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
durable
|
|
| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
exhausted
|
|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
attainment
|
|
| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
animated
|
|
| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
animate
|
|
| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
awakened
|
|
| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
susceptible
|
|
| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
enjoyment
|
|
| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
insipid
|
|
| adj.无味的，枯燥乏味的，单调的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
smitten
|
|
| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
ward
|
|
| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
pang
|
|
| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
drowsy
|
|
| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
stifled
|
|
| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
outlet
|
|
| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
animation
|
|
| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
excellence
|
|
| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
confiding
|
|
| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
distress
|
|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
tract
|
|
| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
intelligible
|
|
| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
doctrine
|
|
| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
retrospect
|
|
| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
lasting
|
|
| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
durability
|
|
| n.经久性，耐用性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
inveterate
|
|
| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
habitual
|
|
| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
complements
|
|
| 补充( complement的名词复数 )； 补足语； 补充物； 补集（数） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
casually
|
|
| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
cohere
|
|
| vt.附着，连贯，一致 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
analytic
|
|
| adj.分析的，用分析方法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
favourable
|
|
| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
prudence
|
|
| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
virtues
|
|
| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
cultivation
|
|
| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
precocious
|
|
| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
premature
|
|
| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
stranded
|
|
| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
benevolence
|
|
| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
malady
|
|
| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
sieve
|
|
| n.筛，滤器，漏勺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
distressed
|
|
| 痛苦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
lighter
|
|
| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
enjoyments
|
|
| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
insufficient
|
|
| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
scrutinizing
|
|
| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
scrutiny
|
|
| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
inhale
|
|
| v.吸入(气体等)，吸(烟) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
dwelling
|
|
| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
forestalling
|
|
| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
72
well-being
|
|
| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
speculation
|
|
| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
recreant
|
|
| n.懦夫；adj.胆怯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
faculties
|
|
| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
cardinal
|
|
| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
ethical
|
|
| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
philosophical
|
|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
creed
|
|
| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
inclinations
|
|
| 倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
impaired
|
|
| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
intermittence
|
|
| n.间断；间歇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
tormented
|
|
| 饱受折磨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
veins
|
|
| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
vein
|
|
| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
honourable
|
|
| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
fabric
|
|
| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
lament
|
|
| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
vapid
|
|
| adj.无味的；无生气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
vehement
|
|
| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
sullenness
|
|
| n. 愠怒, 沉闷, 情绪消沉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
juncture
|
|
| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
perennial
|
|
| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
tranquil
|
|
| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
platonic
|
|
| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
immortality
|
|
| n.不死，不朽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
poetical
|
|
| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
poetic
|
|
| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
antagonism
|
|
| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
relish
|
|
| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
propounding
|
|
| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
illustrating
|
|
| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
sterling
|
|
| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
schism
|
|
| n.分派，派系，分裂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
divergence
|
|
| n.分歧，岔开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
utilitarian
|
|
| adj.实用的，功利的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
paramount
|
|
| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
constituent
|
|
| n.选民；成分，组分；adj.组成的，构成的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
benevolent
|
|
| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
compassionate
|
|
| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
passionate
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
vividly
|
|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
delusive
|
|
| adj.欺骗的，妄想的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
apprehension
|
|
| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
hindrance
|
|
| n.妨碍，障碍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
intimacy
|
|
| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
intercourse
|
|
| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
adversaries
|
|
| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
orator
|
|
| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
deriving
|
|
| v.得到( derive的现在分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
unwillingness
|
|
| n. 不愿意，不情愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
eminence
|
|
| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
generalization
|
|
| n.普遍性，一般性，概括 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
ingenuity
|
|
| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
subtlety
|
|
| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
temperament
|
|
| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
imputing
|
|
| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
134
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
socialist
|
|
| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
disciple
|
|
| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
modifications
|
|
| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
conspicuous
|
|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
ardent
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
doctrines
|
|
| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
gulf
|
|
| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
hearsay
|
|
| n.谣传，风闻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
intervals
|
|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
interval
|
|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
outgrow
|
|
| vt.长大得使…不再适用；成长得不再要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
dominion
|
|
| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
discriminating
|
|
| a.有辨别能力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
vigour
|
|
| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
prosecute
|
|
| vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
meditations
|
|
| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
meditation
|
|
| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
incessantly
|
|
| ad.不停地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
ascertained
|
|
| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
superseding
|
|
| 取代，接替( supersede的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
professing
|
|
| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
accusations
|
|
| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
proceeding
|
|
| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
investigation
|
|
| n.调查，调查研究 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
logic
|
|
| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
phenomena
|
|
| n.现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
premises
|
|
| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
justify
|
|
| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
treatise
|
|
| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
irrational
|
|
| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
faculty
|
|
| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
induction
|
|
| n.感应，感应现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
postponing
|
|
| v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
fathom
|
|
| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
ascend
|
|
| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
syllogism
|
|
| n.演绎法，三段论法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
dynamics
|
|
| n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
joint
|
|
| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
legitimate
|
|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
recollected
|
|
| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
deduction
|
|
| n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
previously
|
|
| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
continental
|
|
| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
instructors
|
|
| 指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
unlimited
|
|
| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
marvelled
|
|
| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
speculations
|
|
| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
hereditary
|
|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
jurisdiction
|
|
| n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
negation
|
|
| n.否定；否认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
authoritative
|
|
| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
philosophically
|
|
| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
copiously
|
|
| adv.丰富地，充裕地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
illustrated
|
|
| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
feudal
|
|
| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
peculiarities
|
|
| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
unanimity
|
|
| n.全体一致，一致同意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
exigencies
|
|
| n.急切需要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
creeds
|
|
| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
disciples
|
|
| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
machinery
|
|
| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
alterations
|
|
| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
specified
|
|
| adj.特定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
203
platitudes
|
|
| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
perverted
|
|
| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
incubus
|
|
| n.负担；恶梦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
blessing
|
|
| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
207
capabilities
|
|
| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
208
apprehended
|
|
| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
209
extricated
|
|
| v.使摆脱困难，脱身( extricate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
210
dilemma
|
|
| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
211
radical
|
|
| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
212
democrat
|
|
| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
213
immorality
|
|
| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
214
secondly
|
|
| adv.第二，其次 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
215
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
216
yoke
|
|
| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
217
mischievous
|
|
| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
218
violations
|
|
| 违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
219
ministry
|
|
| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
220
proprietor
|
|
| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
221
embody
|
|
| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
222
lumbering
|
|
| n.采伐林木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
223
impending
|
|
| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
224
engrossing
|
|
| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
225
secluded
|
|
| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
226
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
227
inquiry
|
|
| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
228
haze
|
|
| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
229
fervent
|
|
| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
230
destined
|
|
| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
231
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
232
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
233
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
234
softened
|
|
| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
235
militant
|
|
| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
236
polemic
|
|
| n.争论，论战 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
237
formerly
|
|
| adv.从前，以前 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
238
esteem
|
|
| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
239
monarchy
|
|
| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
240
indifference
|
|
| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
241
permanently
|
|
| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
242
professed
|
|
| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
243
pliability
|
|
| n.柔韧性；可弯性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
244
engrossed
|
|
| adj.全神贯注的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
245
utterance
|
|
| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
246
disingenuousness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
247
partially
|
|
| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
248
paradox
|
|
| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
249
interrogating
|
|
| n.询问技术v.询问( interrogate的现在分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
250
ratiocination
|
|
| n.推理；推断 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
251
meditating
|
|
| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
252
propounded
|
|
| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
253
originality
|
|
| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
254
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
255
dissertations
|
|
| 专题论文，学位论文( dissertation的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
256
condemning
|
|
| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
257
strenuously
|
|
| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |